Toyota Joins the Big Brother Brigade
Reuters reports that Toyota is set to introduce its own version of GM’s OnStar telematics-based service: Safety Connect. The news agency’s story emphasizes… safety. “The service… is designed to provide drivers with emergency support in the event of an airbag deployment or an accident, through embedded cellular technology and a satellite-based navigation system. The system-equipped vehicles also come with an SOS button, through which customers can communicate with emergency call centers for 24 hours a day. In the event a vehicle is stolen, the service also assists in tracking the location of the stolen vehicle.” The AP widens that remit. “The luxury Lexus version also includes driver convenience features such as driving directions and an advanced voice command program.” You hurt your what? (Enhanced voice recognition.) The official press release adds the finishing touch: the Lexus system will be called “Enform,” which sounds a bit like a feminine hygiene product to me. Anyway, there are ramifications here…
Like GM’s OnStar, the Toyota system will know where a telematics-enabled car is at any given moment. The government could easily go along for the ride. As we’ve reported previously, Oregon is implementing at a road pricing system. I’m sure The Beaver State would be delighted to let the manufacturers pay for the enabling technology for per-mile pricing.
For another, any system that allows receiver initiated communications has the inherent ability to monitor conversations. In other words, Toyota or facilitated third parties could spy on you.
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All good reasons to rip out the OBDII system and replace it with MegaSquirt/MegaJolt or something else... VBG! Seriously I don't want to be the cash cow for any more gov't or insurance interests. I'll buy a subscription to something if I want that. Those are upfront and a clear choice of mine to make. A recent example is a Microsoft patent to require OEMs to build motherboards with a chip on board that helps them with a billing scheme where they sell users services (software, parts of Windows, Office, etc) and then bills them based on how much people use those services... As if I needed any more reason to stay using Linux or my wife's MacBook. Having legislation forced down my throat that bills me for miles driven (when I also pay a gasoline tax designed to pave the roads) or a black box tattletelling on me when I floorboard my car to get around an idiot wandering all over the road or some legislation that forces me to retire a perfectly good and safe vehicle - - is ridiculous. Really those kinds of tricks can be marketted under all sorts of false "good intentions" when the real intention is to vaccum my wallet a little better. I don't mind paying taxes. I don't mind paying for services that I use or for the betterment of society. I don't like paying for gov't fraud or gov't waste or for gov't paid freeloaders. I think we have seen PLENTY of that in the past year or so. A whole portion of society who thinks they are entitled to our money b/c they are clever enough to get it from us. First we get a gadget, then someone starts messing with ways to snoop or make more money from me and then somebody passes some legislation that puts a tax on what I do with that gadget. Meanwhile a certain portion of society thinks they can't live without said gadget and millions latch on to the idea. A new era is borne in America. Meanwhile the roads still have drunks driving on them, the modern new car still only gets marginally better mileage than the old one, we still have hungry kids living in abusive homes, and there is a laundry list of better things we ought to be doing for society. Yes, there is a serious erosion of privacy and liberty in America. LEGALLY there is all sorts of things that companies or the government can't do without cause but I have no doubt that alot of it is done UNTIL they have cause. I have no problems with going after bad guys but who is to say that those rules will be used to go after the rest of us too? You can call me a tin-hatted loon but eventually laws get passed that even you might think is nutty and then you'll have a different opinion (maybe still not the same as mine I'll admit). Just call me an early adopter.... VBG!
So the whole automated crash response thing is on a phone app now. It uses the phone's accelerometer to detect crash G-forces. If it catches on, what would the point be in paying for it in your car?